Sonny and the New Beginnings
by Alliys
Summary: Sonny Carisi, living his best life and finding love. OC character continuation from and old story here: /s/8356197/1/Munch-s-New-Houseguest , which is set circa S6 whereas this is S17. I conform devotedly to the spirit of SVU canon details more than the actuality. Please rate/review!
1. Bewildering Beginnings

Sonny smoothed his suit jacket over his chair carefully, then laid out a file on his desk precisely. It wasn't until after sitting that he noticed an absence.

"Hey, where's Rollins?" he asked no one in particular, and a young female voice answered,

"Assisting Bronx SVU with a case, but the captain only wanted one out, so you still have to stay."

"Oh, okay" Sonny responded, and looked back down at his file. The woman who had answered waited patiently for the double take, as she slunk further into Odafin Tutuola's chair, her feet propped arrogantly on his desk (although she had checked to make sure there were no papers underneath them.) It came slower than she expected, but eventually there was the inevitable. "Hey, who are you?"

The pretty woman smiled winningly at him and didn't respond, only cocked her auburn head a little to the right.

"Do you need something? Can I help you?"

"What have you been here then, a year, year and a half?"

"Yeah, about a year."

"Figures" she responded, shaking her head in mock disappointment.

"I...don't worry, I can help you! Are you here to see the SVU?" The woman looked confused for a moment, then a flash of realization crossed her face and she grinned again. Sonny felt spectacularly out of his depth, the woman looked mid-20s, statistically likely to be here as a victim, but she wasn't acting like any victim he's ever seen. In fact, she looked more comfortable here than he even was. She swung her legs down from the desk and straightened up in the desk chair.

"I'm going to let you know right here and now" she said, "I had fully intended upon playing mysterious and enigmatic up until Finn got here and blew my cover, but you look like such a cute, lost puppy right now it's breaking my heart a little. And so earnest! How do you manage around here?"

At this point Sonny was thoroughly at a loss for words, and was equally certain he had just been insulted or quite possibly complimented, and maybe even flirted with a little. Desperately, he grasped onto the one word that had made sense in this entire exchange.

"Finn? You're here to see Finn?"

"Yeeessss." She responded, drawing the word out.

"Does he know you're here?"

"Noooo."

"Are you sure I can't help you?"

At this point, the woman burst into laughter.

"Detective whatever your name is but I assume is Carisi, I had almost this exact same conversation the first time I stepped foot in this squadroom over a decade ago."

"I am Detective Carisi, yes. Sonny Carisi." He rolled his chair to be closer to her and stuck his hand out, delighted at his good luck in managing to divert this conversation into something that actually made sense and might win him some information.

The woman sighed, knowing she was about to lose this battle of banter, and responded with a firm handshake "Audrey Holt. Ever so delightful to finally put a face to the stories I've heard."

"OH!" Sonny shouted, everything finally falling into place. "You're Sergeant Munch's kid!"

Audrey almost choked.

"Good God man, no, I'm his niece, I may love the man more than anyone else on God's green earth but let's not get hasty with assigning ownership like that. I can't imagine how bizarre I would have turned out if that man had molded me from birth."

"Yeah, I've met him a couple of times, I know what you mean."

"But you're not permitted to say anything bad about him in my company" she admonished, raising one eyebrow at him.

"Right okay. So...why are you here?"

"Oof, okay, tell me how you really feel."

"No! I'm not..! I just…"

"Calm down, kiddo, I'm fucking with you" she said. At the word fucking, Sonny accidentally met her grey eyes with his blue ones, and felt that the moment had suddenly taken an odd sensation, one he didn't wholly object to but was also very disconcerted by. He felt, not for the first time since 'hey who are you', like he was drowning, if only for a moment.

"I just moved back to New York, I'm here to surprise Finn and bully him into making dinner plans with me." she continued, either ignorant over what had just happened in his mind or an excellent actress.

"He'll love that" Sonny grinned. "He talks about you like he does his own son. I've heard all about your success at college in Scotland, grad school in the Netherlands, law school in Harvard?"

"Ooh, I should be really embarrassed right now, but to be honest I'm super vain and pleased. I adore Finn so I'm delighted to have proof it's mutual."

"I'd love to hear about what it's like to study law at Harvard. I'm taking night classes at Fordham Law."

"Nice!" Audrey enthused. "That's gotta take some serious dedication.

What do you want to specialize in, criminal?"

"Yeah, obviously I learn some just from being a cop, but I want to take it more seriously, I have to know more about it."

"An admirable sentiment. Do you think having a cop's perspective on the law makes it easier for you to learn or more challenging by complicating it?

"Oh, a little of both actually. Most people don't ever think about that, or at least they don't ask. I'm ahead because I'm familiar with the laws already, but the way cops do things is never exactly how a lawyer would if they were in our shoes, they-" at this, Sonny was interrupted by a shouted,

"Audrey!" Finn had come back to the squad room, and looked stunned and delighted to see her.

"Finn!" Audrey shot out of the chair and ran over to hug the detective. "You certainly took your time getting back here!"

"Hey, I've been working. What are you doing in New York?"

"Living! I started at the Office of Foreign Missions a couple of weeks ago!"

"Damn, girl, you're doing pretty good for straight out of law school."

"I know, right? I didn't even apply, I was recruited. It was very flattering. It would have been more flattering if my dad's best friend didn't work there. But anyway! John and I are going to dinner tonight to celebrate and you're coming."

"I don't get a choice, huh?"

"Look at you, catching on immediately. And you know what?" she spun on her heel to

Sonny, who had stood and been debating whether he should have retreated back to his desk now. "New kid is invited too. If those guys are left to their own devices it's a night full of the good old days and crazy pervs of the early 2000s and all that. But we need to finish our conversation about the cop/lawyer crossover! And perhaps start some new ones?"

Her smile was inscrutable, and Sonny realized he was leaning at an ever increasingly sharp angle towards her. He straightened up and stammered "Yeah, yeah definitely"

"Good! Excellent!" She grabbed a black messenger bag he hadn't even noticed on the floor, and slung it over her shoulder. "Carmine's, 7pm reservation. And now, I've got diplomats to babysit. See you tonight." She gave a small incline of her head, kissed Finn on the cheek, and with a cheeky salute to Sonny, swaned out of the squadroom.

"No." Sonny looked at Finn, who was staring straight at him.

"What?" Sonny asked.

"She's Munch's kid."

"Well...actually, she's his niece..."

"Oh _hell_ no."


	2. Comradely Beginnings

"No, no that's disgusting."

John Munch laughed at the look on his niece's face.

"No, I'm serious, I thought work stories were going to get _less_ wretched when you became a DA Investigator."

"It's all the same stuff, just from the other side" Finn interjected, leaning his chair on the back legs. Staring across the table, Sonny could see a little twitch around Audrey's lips and imagined the woman was holding back a remark about how likely Finn was to fall flat on his back, but decided it was too motherly and would be mocked. He didn't know why he thought he could read her mind after having talked to her for a sum total of perhaps 30 minutes, but she saw him staring and flushed a little, as if she too thought he knew. For in fact, as if emboldened, she snapped a moment later,

"Finn, do you think after all the guns that have been pointed in your direction, cracking you head on the floor will be a honorable death?"

"Maybe I do, Mom." he said, as two people at that table had internally predicted.

Seeing her overt annoyance at herself, Sonny jumped to change the conversation back to Munch's career. "Is it really right to say it's the other side, though? Criminals are the other side. The DA's office and the cops are on the same team."

"Oh, I bet you think so, Fordham Law" Finn smirked.

"It's a good post-retirement gig, but Finn isn't wrong. The DA's office and the NYPD may

not be in opposition, but they aren't on the same side."

"A triangle?" Audrey posed, leaning into a familiar sounding banter with her uncle.

"Something like that" John said.

"Isosceles or…"

"Only if I can be the longest side"

"Come now Jonathan, now's not the right time and place for such posturing."

"Hey I'm not-"

Sonny was surprised "I didn't know your name was actually Jonathan."

"It's not" Munch responded.

"I only call him that when I'm being a little shit."

"So, all the time" Much cracked back.

"OooooOOOOH harsh" She was clearly pleased at the insult.

"And where do you fit in in all of it?" Sonny asked, concerned the conversation kept moving back to Audrey and her doting dad- figures.

"I…. am admittedly not doing what I thought I would be when I was a teenager who decided she wanted to fight injustice through the courts."

"You're not happy at Foreign Missions?"

"It's a prime position by all accounts, but right now I'm scolding diplomat's teenagers about their drunk driving, essentially."

"You're just starting, Audrey, you'll move up." John interrupted, surprising Sonny with amount of care in his voice. "Excuse me" John continued, getting up to go to the bathroom.

"Why there, then?" Sonny asked

"Foreign Missions has a lot of exciting and fulfilling possibilities, especially for someone whose dad made them learn like ten languages as a child. The jobs are there, I'm just not- in them yet."

They were interrupted for a moment as Finn's phone rang, and he got up to answer it.

"But perhaps you know something about that" Audrey added, "seeing as you made it to Detective, but you're still pursuing education in alternate career paths?"

"I don't even know if I'll use it."

"That's a big chunk of a cop's salary for something that may be superfluous."

"Yeah it might have been a bad idea but-"

"NO!" Audrey almost shouted, then, embarrassed at her outburst, continued more quietly, "I think it's impressive! It's a significant commitment to bettering one's understanding of their world, and you're doing it more for passion than for a plan, at least that's the way it seems?"

"Thanks, that's the best way I've ever heard it put."

"It must be exhausting."

"It's been spread out pretty well, so I don't have a lot of class hours per week, it's mostly just a lot of studying and learning independently. And of course there's time for that on long stakeouts and stuff like that."

"So how much do you think you consider actually leaving the NYPD and becoming a lawyer verses just rising in the ranks with the benefit of your knowledge?"

"It depends on what case I'm working on at the time, to be honest."

"Fair enough."

"Can I ask- how much did you uncle share with you about the cases he worked on in the SVU? I just ask because of what you said about wretched work stories."

"Ahh, that was always a bone of contention between him and Detective Stabler. I don't think you'll have met him?"

"No, but I've heard about him."

"He was this hardcore protective dad of his own little brood, and he thought John was thoroughly corrupting my little teenager brain. But you know. I was an orphan, I'd travelled a lot at this point, I'd seen darkness, and John's openness helped me know how to deal with it. And I think being able to talk about it helped him deal. Maybe a detective in his 50s shouldn't have been using a kid as his counselor, but we have a good thing going on, and I'm not _too_ scarred. Enough about me, good God, what about you? Do you share your cases with your girlfriend?"

"Oh, no, well, I don't have a girlfriend."

"I know. Damn, I don't know why I said that, I'm not a coy person. I wouldn't have invited you to dinner if I thought you had a girlfriend."

"Are you saying?"

"That I essentially tricked you into dinner with what are practically my parents as a method of discerning if you were actually single and interested in me of if you had just been baffled by what has been described as my "offputting straightforwardness? Yes."

"I can see why you did well in law school."

"What? No! Don't say _that._ That tells me _nothing!_ What are you thinking right now?"

"Hey, where'd Finn go?" John asked, returning to the table. Sonny, who was at this point restraining a shout of joy, couldn't help but find the sheer frustration on Audrey's face hilarious.

"I'm right here" the other man said, returning to the table. "Carisi, we got a call. Captain wants us in."

"Alright, guess that's dinner over then. It was great seeing you again, Finn. Way too long." John said, getting up from the table with the two detectives. Audrey stood too.

"Well okay, lads. John, why don't you walk your partner to his car for old times sake." she said, voice thick with joking condescension, "and I'll walk New Generation to his"

The two older men shared a knowing look, and Audrey was quick to add her own knowing one to the mix. The only person who didn't seem to understand how this had all happened, Sonny mused, was clearly himself.

Sonny and Audrey walked slowly to his car, increasingly farther and farther behind John and Finn.

"I'm sorry. Say something, please. No, I'm sorry. I'm too forward." Audrey rushed.

"Are you kidding me?" Sonny asked. "I'm- interested. I just couldn't believe that you were too. I didn't know what to say."

"Come on, you're not a shy man."

"No, I'm not."

"If you saw me in a bar you would have asked for my number."

"Yeah, I would have!"

"Then why did you let me do all this!? It's very stressful, you know."

"I don't think I could have stopped you."

"Are you okay with that?"

"Hold up."

"Yeah?"

"Hi, my name's Sonny"

"Hi, Sonny, I'm Audrey."

"I couldn't help by notice you there, across the dinner table from me…"

She laughed, right on cue.

"And I was wondering if you'd get dinner with me again tomorrow? Just us, this time."

"Well, Sonny, I supposed one does have to eat."

"That one does do."

"And I could do worse than your company."

"That's what all the girls say."

She laughed again, and he felt another swell of pride.

"Well then Sonny, it's a date."


End file.
